A screen showing facial injuries Christopher Ballew suffered by Pasadena police during a November arrest, were shown to the press at the Law Offices of John Burton in Pasadena, Calif. on Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2017. Ballew is preparing to file a lawsuit against the city. (Correspondent photo by Trevor Stamp)

Pasadena police officers Lerry Esparza and Zachary Lujan were nearly a half-mile into Altadena and driving north when they spotted a car with tinted windows driving toward their city’s border.

They whipped into a U-turn, but the driver never crossed into Pasadena’s jurisdiction, instead pulling off at a Mobil Gas Station on the corner of Woodbury Road and Fair Oaks Avenue, still in Altadena and the domain of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The officers followed, and within minutes the scene turned violent, according to dash camera footage.

The November stop of driver Chris Ballew over tinted windows and a missing front license plate has embroiled Pasadena, and inadvertently Altadena, in a racial controversy. The encounter ended with the officers breaking the man’s leg and smashing his face into the cement. A bystander’s video of the incident went viral and mounting political pressure led to the city releasing raw footage from officers’ body and dash cameras.

Although he’s been accused of resisting arrest, Ballew, who is African-American and lives in Altadena, was not charged with a crime and is now suing Pasadena. An internal investigation into the use of force is ongoing.

Residents in both cities have repeatedly asked why Pasadena police officers stopped someone outside of their jurisdiction in the first place, and they’ve been given no answers. Anger over what some are calling police brutality has community members in Altadena demanding that Pasadena’s officers stay out of the unincorporated foothill community indefinitely.

Legally, California grants authority to peace officers to operate statewide, meaning an officer from Pasadena can arrest you in Sacramento if it’s warranted. But the Pasadena Police Department’s own policy encourages its officers sticking to the geographical boundaries as much as possible.

“On-duty arrests will not generally be made outside the jurisdiction of this department except in cases of hot or fresh pursuit, while following up on crimes committed with the city or while assisting another agency,” the policy states. “On-duty officers who discover criminal activity outside the jurisdiction of the city should, when circumstances permit, consider contacting the agency having primary jurisdiction before attempting an arrest.”

Pasadena police officials declined to answer questions about the encounter with Ballew, including whether the arrest met the standards for an out-of-jurisdiction stop. Pasadena spokesman William Boyer pointed instead to the state law outlining the broad authority given to officers.

The jurisdictions can affect how charges are filed in a case.

If the stop had occurred in Pasadena, the city attorney’s office would have handled any misdemeanor charges against Ballew. But because the incident happened in Altadena, the L.A. County District Attorney’s office reviewed both misdemeanor and felony recommendations from the department and opted not to pursue any charges.

Ballew’s attorney, John Burton, said he believed the officers were part of a gang detail, and that they used “the stop as pretext to catalog the young people in that area as potential gang members.”

The officers did not call in the stop until they already had Ballew pushed up against his car, Burton said.

Burton’s daughter, who is also African-American, was later stopped at the same intersection after she looked at her phone while at a red light, Burton said.

“They don’t just give her a ticket for texting while driving,” he said. “They order her out of the car, ask to search the car, pat her down for weapons, ask her about tattoos, ask her about gang affiliation.”

They sat her on the curb, facing the same gas station where Ballew was arrested, and then later released her with a warning, Burton alleged. He believes officers would have done the same thing to Ballew if they had pulled him over in Pasadena, rather than intercepting him as he was walking inside to pay for his gas.

Burton denies Ballew knew officers were attempting a stop before they pulled up behind his car at the pump. The two stops in the same area, both on a Thursday evening, suggests the department is routinely operating in Altadena, he said.

“I can’t imagine these are the only two,” he said.

Captain Vicki Stuckey, the head of the Altadena sheriff’s station, described the borders between the two cities as “very fluid” and said the Pasadena officers were within their authority to stop Ballew, just as her deputies have the authority to stop someone in Pasadena.

“We strongly encourage our personnel to stay inside our jurisdiction, but periodically, we may end up in other jurisdictions,” she said. Her station was not involved in a gang task force with Pasadena, she said.

On Tuesday, the Altadena Town Council heard dozens of complaints about the incident. One resident, Nicole Moore, said she doesn’t feel safe driving through the community with her African-American partner.

If they get pulled over, “we don’t know who is in that lighted car,” she said.

Following hours of comment, the council voted to send a letter to Pasadena and the L.A. County Supervisors expressing the council’s and residents’ concerns.

“This is not something the Town Council will look the other way and allow to continue to happen,” council Chairman Okorie Ezieme said.

Had the sheriff’s department been involved, the council would yield more clout — PPD doesn’t have to answer to Altadena’s leaders.

Veronica Jones represents the census tract where Ballew was stopped. She pressured her colleagues to address the neighboring department’s actions.

“You feel helpless,” she said. “We don’t have any direct remedy.”

Jones believes officers were racially profiling Ballew and called their decision to stop him over a waste of taxpayer dollars.

“They should call the sheriff, and let the sheriff do their job,” she said.

Jason Henry is an investigative reporter with the Southern California News Group. Raised in Ohio, Jason began his career at a suburban daily near Cleveland before moving to California in 2013. He is a self-identified technophile, data nerd and wannabe drone pilot.